Enough
by jenn02134
Summary: Embry was the son of the other woman, the boy unwanted by his father, the wolf who never should have been, and the man who would just never be quite good enough. Or so he thought...


This is a one-shot I wrote a few months ago for the Fandom4Storms Fundraiser.

Summary: Embry was the son of the other woman, the boy unwanted by his father, the wolf who never should have been, and the man who would just never be quite good enough. Or so he thought...

Disclaimer: I do not own 'Twilight' or anything affiliated with it.

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><p>"<strong>Enough<strong>**"**

_The __Son __of __the __Other __Woman__…_

Tiffany LeAnn Call moved to La Push when she was six months pregnant with that lying, cheating man whore's spawn. That's what she called the thing growing inside her. It was a thing. A leech. A parasite that sucked the fun out of her life and made her ankles swell and her back hurt and her moods unpredictable. She didn't even recognize herself anymore. She used to be Tiff Call, the hottest girl at Neah Bay High School and THE conquest of every male in the Makah tribe between the ages of oh-you-mean-girls-DON'T-have-cooties? and…well…any age after that. Now, though? Now she was a washed up, knocked up, fucked up pariah. Men took one look at her swollen torso and hurriedly turned the other way, gossiping to their friends like the old ladies who met in the mornings to quilt.

Yep. Tiff Call was gone, and in her place was a pregnant girl fresh out of high school whose parents wouldn't allow her to get an abortion "as long as she lived under their roof," but then unceremoniously kicked her out when she let it slip the father was a married Quileute, at which point it was already too late to get the damn thing sucked out of her uterus.

"How could you break up a home?" they said. "How could you dishonor your family like this?"

So off to La Push she went. Showing up looking like a ragamuffin on Joshua Uley's front porch hadn't gone over so well with the man. He had looked like he wanted nothing more than to strike her dead right there on his lawn, but a quiet "Daddy?" from his three year old son had spared her such a fate. It had also spared Josh Uley a scene. She hadn't known about the son. However, if she'd known the bastard was going to skip town a couple years later, she damn sure wouldn't have left without another word like she did. Wouldn't have kept her mouth shut when his wife came to the door and asked who it was. Wouldn't have shut her car door when she heard him tell the woman it was some out-of-town girl who needed directions. But that's what she'd done, and she couldn't go back and change it, no matter how much she wanted to.

She decided she was going to have the thing and leave it at the free clinic or the fire department in Forks. They had some law that said she could do that, right?

She got a job at the souvenir shop near First Beach to pay for a hole-in-the-wall, ramshackle, one-room apartment. She put whatever she had left from that and buying ramen noodles into a jar. She figured once the thing was out of her, she'd go to Los Angeles or San Diego or some other warm, glamorous place she'd never been but always wanted to go.

But then, two and a half months later the spawn was born, and one look in its eyes was all it took for "it" to become "him" and for "him" to become "Embry."

Embry.

She had wanted to get RID of him? Had hated him? Had wanted to die because of him? She cried so hard after that one look that the nurses had to pull him away from her chest, only serving to make her worse.

She was no longer Tiff Call. She was no longer the washed up, knocked up pariah whose parents kicked her out and whose lover fucked her and then went home to his wife and son. She was no longer just Tiffany Call. She was Tiffany Call plus one. Tiffany Call, the mommy.

Embry.

She wasn't sure why she picked the name, guessed it was because that was the name of her favorite soap opera actor. She was still just eighteen, after all. What more could anyone have expected?

Her life changed that night, though. Right then and there. Changed and changed permanently. Embry went home in hospital clothes and a donated carrier, but as soon as she was up to it Tiffany took all the California money, all three thousand bucks of it, and spent it on the cutest onesies she could find for cheap price, bottles, bibs, a hand-me-down crib and changing table set, a breast pump, and diapers. A shit-ton of diapers. GOD were there a lot of diapers…

It wasn't easy, though. She was a single mom. Her family had kicked her out. The father…no, the sperm donor…of her kid didn't want a thing to do with her or her son.

But Embry was a quiet baby. His terrible twos weren't as hellacious as she'd been expecting, aside from the whole teething thing. He was quiet as a toddler, quiet as an adolescent, quiet as a pre-pubescent teenage boy. She could see the longing, the disappointment in his eyes after he spent any period of time with Jake and Quil, the boys he'd met in daycare while she worked at the gift shop and had been glued too ever since.

The boys who had fathers.

Try as hard as she might, Tiffany the mommy wasn't enough for her son.

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><p><em>The <em>_Boy __Unwanted __by __His __Father__…_

A check would come sporadically in the mail, the memo line bearing the words _For__the__Kid_ in smudged chicken scratch. Embry never asked about it. He knew who it was from telling his best buddies Jake and Quil about it, who then imparted their seven year old wisdom on such matters upon him.

"Tara Griffin told me one time about her dad sending those pieces of paper to Seattle to pay for her brother's teeth. Maybe it's like that."

"Yeah. Bella told me her dad sends checks to her mom since Bella only comes here every summer 'cause her mom and dad don't live together. So maybe it's like the dad renting the kid from the mom, or something. Y'know, since everybody grows in the mom's guts and not the dad's, so the dads have to pay the moms."

"But I don't have a dad, Jake."

"'Course you have a dad, Embry! Everybody's got a dad. Duh!"

They told him to ask his mom and then went on playing dragon-slaying army snipers.

Embry couldn't ask his mom, though. The last time he asked why he didn't have a dad after being dropped off from school by Billy and Jake, his mom got really angry and cried. His mom was always nice to him, and so he felt really bad about hurting her feelings. So he decided that as far as his mom knew, all he knew was that every time one of those folded up pieces of paper came, he got new shoes and sometimes even a game for his Nintendo 64.

But seven year old wisdom soon turned into the raging hormones of adolescence, and a fourteen year old Embry just wasn't able to understand why it was only him and his mom. Why he couldn't have someone to practice basketball with or toss a football to in the backyard. Why he couldn't have a dad of his own to take him fishing and tell him about girls and teach him how to work on an engine.

Sam Uley tried to come over once and hang out with him, which weirded Embry out because Sam was in high school. Why would he want to have anything to with a little middle-schooler?

Embry didn't know that Sam had put two and two together, and that in this particular equation four equated to Embry being his younger half-brother. Sam's dad was an asshole who'd left his mom and slept with scores of women, even before he walked out on his family. Sam wasn't an idiot. He'd seen the way his mom looked at Embry Call, had seen the way she sneered at his mother with such hatred in her eyes.

Not to mention that the two boys looked almost exactly alike, almost exactly like Sam's father…like THEIR father.

Embry's mom had run Sam Uley off, though, muttering about cowardly bastards shirking their responsibilities and bad influences and nosy jilted wives.

Just like he'd done with the topic of his father, Embry never asked why his mom pushed Sam off their property, and decided it'd be best if he just forgot it ever happened.

It wouldn't be the last Embry'd see of Sam Uley, though, not by a long shot.

Sam never made the effort again, not until he had to, that is. He didn't want to upset his mother, didn't have enough incentive to try again since Tiff Call would probably just run him off again.

Not to mention that Sam didn't deal with rejection well, either. Not from his father. Not from Tiff Call. Not even from Emily Young.

Embry didn't ask questions because he hadn't been enough, wasn't enough, but Sam internalized his anger and shut down for the same reasons.

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><p><em>The <em>_Wolf __Who __Never __Should __Have __Been__…_

Embry was never entirely sure why Tiffany moved to La Push after finding out about him…until he phased, of course. Then it became glaringly obvious. The alleged drunken abusive boyfriend whose name he never knew wasn't Embry's father. Instead, his father had been, or _was,_ as far as he knew, a happily married man who already had a family. He didn't need Embry's mom. He didn't need Embry. Embry was the bastard son of the souvenir shop cashier, soon to be known as the bastard son of the souvenir shop cashier and constant pink elephant in the room among his pack brothers, one of whom just so happened to have the same blood running through his veins as Embry did.

Hearing your best friends constantly thinking about how they hope you aren't their half brother doesn't do much for a guy's self-esteem.

Seeing your two best friends' fathers and looking for pieces of yourself in their faces every chance you get doesn't do much for it, either.

Embry knew this because he experienced it first hand at least twice a week.

He wasn't enough for anyone to even attempt to claim him.

Rumors swirled wildly within the council of Embry's paternity. He wasn't supposed to phase. He was a Makah who'd been transplanted to the La Push rez. He shouldn't have the blood of the Quileute Spirit Warriors flowing through his veins.

But he did.

And eventually, though it took several years, he found out why.

It took him a while to realize that Sam, his Alpha, treated him differently than he did the other wolves. He always had some extra advice to give Embry about phasing or schoolwork or girls or life in general. Both Sam and Emily took a heavy interest in his well-being, and he thought it might just be because Sam knew what it was like not to have a father, too. And as had become his modus operandi, Embry didn't ask. He went with it.

But being a wolf enhanced everything. Not just senses and strength, but memory, too. Long-term memory. When Jake left with the Cullens and Renesmee, the two packs merged and became one, all the wolves under Sam's leadership once again.

And then, two days later, Sam decided to retire.

When Quil asked who'd be taking over, since Paul was a great beta but didn't have the patience to deal with the seven younger wolves despite his imprint with Rachel Black having calmed him down immensely, nor the bloodline to really fit into the role, Sam let a memory, a memory from when he was three years old, slip.

Tiffani Call had been on his porch. Pregnant. Arguing with his dad, who, upon hearing Sam call out for him, had blanched and looked menacingly at the young teenager.

Joshua Uley was Embry Call's father. There was no doubt in Sam's mind. Sam let that slip, too.

And so the man who no one thought was fit to phase became Alpha of the pack through what was more or less divine right, through blood lines, through the father who never wanted him and the older half-brother who had sort-of-but-not-quite given up on him.

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><p><em>The Man Who Would Just Never be Quite Good Enough...<em>

Sam and Jake were more cut out to be leaders than him. Embry was too quiet, too complacent, too eager-to-please to direct and praise and reprimand.

Embry had to lie to his mother even more, had to sneak out of the house more frequently, eventually had to buy his own place out of guilt, which only served to increase his mother's suspicions.

She said he was doing drugs, had been saying that since he started "hanging out with that damned bastard Sam Uley and his gang of drug-peddling thugs."

She said he had forgotten about her, that he had stopped caring about her, that he never spent any time with her anymore. She said he'd forgotten where he came from and who had made sure he was fed and clothed and loved.

Nothing was good enough for her anymore. His grades and friends in high school hadn't been good enough. His job and salary at the garage weren't good enough. He wasn't good enough.

He hadn't been good enough for his father.

He wasn't good enough for his mother's family to want to have anything to do with him.

His supernaturally sculpted body was good enough for the girls around the rez and Forks, even some from Port Angeles, to fuck him. Nothing else about him was good enough to make any of them stay. He wasn't good enough to make anyone want to pursue anything more, wasn't good enough to make any of them want him, to want Embry the man, not just Embry the spectacular lay. (Not that he really had any complaints about that part. Still, though, it'd be nice to have someone who wasn't of the male persuasion…or Leah…to have an actual conversation with.)

He wasn't good enough for himself, either. He hadn't been good enough to make his dad want him, though as he got older he had to start admitting his dad was just a jackass. He hadn't been fast enough, strong enough, able enough as a wolf to keep those two nomadic vampires from killing on tribal lands the first year he was Alpha, the lands he was bound to protect. He didn't try hard enough to reassure his mother. He'd pretty much given up on ever having a close relationship with Tiffany Call again. He wasn't interesting enough to keep anyone around him outside his pack or who wasn't obligated to be for there for any extended period of time at work or in line at the grocery store.

He was lonely. He wanted what Sam had with Emily and their sons, what Jared and Kim and Paul and Rachel had with babies on the way, even what Quil had with a nine year old Claire or what Jake had with a nearly full-grown Renesmee.

He wasn't good enough for an imprint, either. Though he was Alpha, he figured he wasn't deserving enough or Quileute enough and didn't have bloodlines strong enough. Wasn't enough to be looked at favorably by the spirits.

Just plain wasn't enough.

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><p><em>Or So He Thought…<em>

Ava Taylor had been a quiet yet hard-ass girl for as long as she could remember. Growing up in foster homes all over the greater state of Washington her entire life had shaped the woman into a cynical, pessimistic recluse. She'd never had a real family. She'd never been particularly close to anyone…until Leyoni Call had shown up in her life.

Leyoni was a troubled old woman who'd arrived in the clinic Ava worked at in Spokane. Ava wasn't sure why she befriended her, but figured they'd both fallen upon hard times and had kindred spirits because of it.

Ava wasn't one to ask questions.

Leyoni volunteered the information about kicking out her hellion of a teenage daughter when a pregnancy by a married man had been the last straw. All the information she knew about her grandchild came from an old friend of her daughter's who'd visited the girl in the hospital after the baby had been born.

All she knew was that his name was Embry, that Tiffany had fallen in love with him immediately and couldn't give him up, and that he had the prettiest hazel eyes the friend had ever seen.

"Like Tiffany's, I imagine," Leyoni had said.

It was obvious the woman had regrets.

He was apparently about her age, by the way Leyoni talked. Though she knew little about him, she mentioned him at least once a day, wondering about him and where he was and what he was doing and whether or not he looked like her husband and son.

Ava wasn't sure why, but she thought about him a lot. She chalked it up to having no friends aside from an aging, ailing woman, and never dating because no guy could tolerate her moodiness longer than five minutes.

Embry was an elusive, idle concept.

But Ava wasn't one to ask questions.

Ava was more of the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-and-hope-you-don't-die type.

So when Leyoni asked her to go to La Push and attempt to find, then somehow persuade, Tiffany to bring her grandson to meet her before she died, Ava jumped at the chance, though she wasn't sure why.

She couldn't understand why she felt drawn to this man when she'd never met him, only heard of him and his hazel eyes. Couldn't understand why she could see them so clearly when she slept.

Yeah, so maybe she was delusional, but she'd go to La Push anyway. Leyoni was persuasive, and enough like Ava to know the right way to convince her to go.

And so Ava went to La Push with no directions, no address, just a name and a clunker of a Ford pick-up truck…which of course would conveniently break down just as she reached the outskirts of the Quileute Reservation.

One tow truck, two overly helpful male passersby, and a semi-handsy tow truck driver later, Ava found herself at a run-down auto repair shop staring at the sexiest ass she'd ever seen in a pair of grimy jeans.

Then he turned around…

Embry had been having a good day, better than usual, and he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He never had days like this, days where he was happy and hummed along with the radio as he worked. Even the customers had been pleasant.

He was expecting a tow any minute now, but was trying to finish up some work on a fan belt before Hank Martin, one of his coworkers, got back with the client.

Hearing the tow truck pull up just outside the shop and the engine being cut, he straightened from where he'd been bent over the engine, wiping his hands on a grease rag and languidly turning around, expecting to get a report on the broken-down car from Hank.

And right there she was…his imprint. Words couldn't describe how that made him feel.

But then, when they exchanged names (_Ava __Taylor, __Ava __Taylor, __Ava __Taylor, __so __beautiful, __Ava __Taylor, __Ava __Taylor_), she was saying that he had a grandmother, his mom's mom, who was looking for him, who was dead-set on meeting him.

He kissed her then, and wondered for a split second why he just couldn't bring himself to regret being so forward. He wasn't sure. Maybe because of the imprint, maybe because she'd only been in his life for two minutes and she was telling him he had family who _wanted_ him, maybe because she was just _so __fucking __beautiful __and __she__'__d __said __his __name __so __prettily_, probably a combination of all three.

She kissed him back.

Embry wasn't sure about why she wasn't hesitant, either, why she wasn't angered by his complete lack of decorum, but he wasn't one to ask questions.

Neither was she.

That was good enough for Embry.

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><p><strong>AN: Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcomed and appreciated!**


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